Archive for May, 2008

On Monday, June 9 at seven p.m. in the EMU Walnut Room the Pacifica Forum will host David Irving. Yes, that David Irving. Way to stay classy, guys. Irving’s topic du jour will be “Political Imprisonment in Modern Europe.” Irving has some first-hand experience on the issue; he was convicted of Holocaust denial in Austria in 2006. I’m excited about this opportunity to see a world class, professional asshat in person.

Update: Not so shockingly, this post got linked to over at Stormfront. I’ve locked the comment thread. Now resuming our regular, ZOG-approved content (sarcasm, by the way).

I noticed this story on Instapundit, and even though it’s not specifically about concealed carry on campus, it seemed apropos to the new issue of the Commentator. The gist of it is that a man walked into a bar and started shooting, killing two and wounding two others before stopping to reload.

It was at this point that the second shooter, the Reno resident, produced a concealed handgun and proceeded to fire upon Villagomez who succumbed to his wounds. The Reno resident was in possession of a valid Concealed Carry Permit issued through the Washoe County Sheriff’s Office.

After further investigation as well as ongoing discussions with Humboldt County District Attorney Russell Smith, the decision was made that the shooting of Villagomez by the Reno man was a justifiable homicide as outlined in Nevada Revised Statute 200.120 and 200.160. Because of this the Reno man was released from police custody.

At this point, there doesn’t seem to be any solid motive for the crime, though the article does speculate that the shooter may have been engaged in some sort of family vendetta. This article seems to reinforce that theory. Neither story indicates whether or not the killer was a legal gun owner or not.

The ODE issued an editorial today criticizing plans to make campus smoke-free. However, it didn’t take an absolutist stance on the issue. Instead, the editorial suggests placing designated smoking areas on campus. From the article:

Further regulating the areas where people can smoke on campus would be a more reasonable, effective and generally welcomed change. People who smoke cigarettes right outside of campus buildings are a nuisance to non-smokers who must pass through the toxic cloud on their way to class, but they shouldn’t be forced from campus. Smoking is a vice and an addiction. This is common knowledge, and as a society we have chosen, as illustrated by our laws, to maintain cigarettes as a legal right to citizens who choose to consume them. If cigarettes are indeed banned on campus, smokers will simply go elsewhere when their nicotine cravings strike, or more likely will just flout the law and light up anyway. Nevertheless, they won’t stop smoking. University officials need to realize when their attempts to regulate student behavior will have palpable effects, and when they will fall on deaf ears.

Many of the other Commentators and I believe that a much better solution than both of these proposals would be to simply enforce the existing rules that ban smoking within a certain number of feet from a building entrance. The majority of complaints about smoking on campus are due to people smoking in front of doors. If the rules were actually enforced, I don’t think the smoking ban would have half the support it does.

When did “liberal guilt” get such a bad reputation? You hear it all the time now from people who sneeringly dismiss whites who support Obama’s candidacy as “guilty liberals.” There are, of course, many reasons why whites might support Obama that have nothing to do with race. But what if redeeming our shameful racial past is one factor for some? Why delegitimize sincere excitement that his nomination and potential election would represent a historic civil rights landmark: making an abstract right a reality at last. Instead, their feeling must be disparaged as merely the result of a somehow shameful “liberal guilt.”

Mmmkay. Well, he’s got a point there, though I think it’s one that is more up for debate than he’s willing to admit. Fair enough, though. Hmm… what else has he got to say… let’s see…

Everyone’s favorite ex-professor Deb Frisch is currently spamming up the Daily Emerald’s comment section. She’s using the following sock puppets: “heckler,” “amos,” “borscht belt,” “sara hodges,”“bill not so hardbaugh,” “myron rothbart,” “ben Bernanke,” and “david crowell.” Frisch’s beautiful prose can also be found clogging up the comments at Predictably Irrational.

I don’t have the energy to tell the full, convoluted tale of Deb Frisch’s Internet Jihad, but let’s just say if you could convert crazy to electricity, Frisch could power Las Vegas for a week. You can read the whole backstory in the archives or over at the Deborah Frisch Timeline. Thanks to Will for the tip.

UPDATE: I just remembered it was my turn to do Metal Monday. There’s a video dedicated to Auntie Moonbat after the jump (more…)

So says Forrest Nabors, a doctoral candidate in political science, in a fantastic editorial response to the self-congratulatory braying of UO Professor David Frank’s recent commentary “Dangerous Silence.” Nabors points out that Frank’s assertion that “The greatest danger lurking on the University of Oregon campus is conformity” is true, but not in the way Frank thinks. Frank cites the Universities great victories for patriotic dissent: Frohnmayer’s defense of the Insurgent, the 1962 invitation to the General Secretary of the American Communist Party, Robert Clark’s defense of Marxist teachings under scrutiny from Salem, etc. But, Nabors correctly points out

“The problem for Frank’s case is that all of his examples do not demonstrate bucking conformity, but are typical of what we who live and work here already know — that the UO campus community is left-progressive to the core…

…In taking the positions they did, our university leaders did not buck the norms of this community, they conformed to our community norms. And since Frank believes that conformity is public enemy No. 1, will he next propose shipping conservative professors in by the truckload? How would university departments meet such a nonconformist proposal? Let us sing out the answer together: Dead On Arrival. The day this university’s search committees deem conservative professors a necessary component in the diversity quotient is the day I recommend you look up from your window at a sky darkened by winged pigs.”

Nabors brings his argument home with the most damning example of intellectual conformity on campus: the fact that his summer PS399: American Conservativism class will be the first course on conservative thought to be offered at the UO in 30 years. With the Republican party in disarray and the split between social conservatives and libertarians widening, Nabors has picked a fascinating time to examine American conservativism. And take on the empty posturing of the defenders of the campus status quo.

The NASA spacecraft Phoenix landed on Mars today, completing a 9 month journey to the red planet. NASA technicians and scientists were elated at the success of the landing. Historically, only a third of Mars landing missions have been successful, with the other portion failing due to miscalculations, crash landings, or unknown loss of contact. The lander used a powered descent, the first to do so since Viking 1 and 2 in 1976.

Initial pictures show the planet to be in the exact same condition as we last observed it when Opportunity and Spirit landed in 2003. Let me reiterate: Mars is exactly the same as it was 5 years ago. Once again, millions of taxpayers’ dollars were spent towards a mission to Mars that will most likely accomplish a fraction of its initial goals and still manage to excite all the astronomers and scientists at NASA.

Phoenix, designed to look for water and other signs of habitability, is the 5th successful NASA mission to land on Mars. NASA collaborated with the University of Arizona to design and carry the $325 million project. Earlier today, Phoenix landed in the arctic areas of Mars, and will be digging into the ground with a robotic arm to a whopping depth of 0.5 meters below the Martian surface. Pictures are streaming back by the hundreds, and can be viewed here.

Due to a change in the bi-laws, Wayne Allyn Root, former presidential candidate (as of about ballot #4), may now run for VP with Barr.

I’m a little personally frustrated because both Barr and Root just converted to the Libertarian Party this year, and I was pulling for Mary Ruwart because of her previous nominations within the party, and her fly bangs. At least she made it to ballot #6.

As a side note; if someone were to make a movie about Wayne Allyn Root’s life, might I suggest casting Sean Astin, the guy from The Goonies and Lord of the Rings, as Root? Just a suggestion.

The content for the OC’s newest issue is obviously a step toward our Hate Hack Attack Double Feature, due out in two weeks. Don’t miss Drew Thunderlove Cattermole’s response to someone who accused him of perpetuating a climate of rape. I checked the “Yes” box.

And yes, I know the page numbers are wrong on the cover, but the EMU is closed for the weekend so deal with it until Tuesday.

Esquire has included local bar Sam Bond’s Garage in its list of the 100 best bars in America. Sam Bond’s was the only bar from Oregon to make the cut. Here’s what Esquire had to say about the venerable establishment:

As you stretch out on the split-timber benches under the old barn’s bare rafters, you slowly realize you’re in the family room of one of the weirdest neighborhoods in America — a shady, overgrown co-op of artists, ecoanarchists, spirit healers, drug dealers, and permanently circling vagabonds. And the living couldn’t be better: Couples play cribbage on the rough-hewn communal tables, kids loll on the modest stage until the sun goes down, and the strong-limbed waitresses circulate the beers in mason jars and smile, but only if they really mean it. It’s like a frontier dance hall in a mining town where the vein’s gone dry. The dreams are alive, but appealingly bruised.

After a long three month hiatus, the Student Insurgent has finally published another issue.

I was going to propose, for our Hack Attack issue, that we just publish blank space and have a caption asking, “Where were the other publications this year?” But alas (or maybe hooray) they managed to spew out another amazing issue, featuring gems such as:

Regarding Ants

Ants truly use the motto, “e Pluribus Unum,” out of many one.

Next, you’re going to tell me that ants Trust In God, as well, right?

If youwant a better world, you could do worse than having ants as role models.
-Brian Kvenvolden is a prisoner of war (emphasis mine) in the Wisconsin Prison Industrial Complex.

Great, all we need: prisoners telling us to better our world by following ants. (more…)

In an epic, five-page tour of the world of throbbing temples and “bed spins”, Joan Acocella explores the causes (duh), strange cures (“Pickle juice or a shot of vodka or pickle juice with a shot of vodka.”), and patron saint (St Vivian) of hangovers. Questions you never thought to ask are answered: Why isn’t there good scientific research on hangovers? Because drunk study subjects are hard to control, and rats with “artificially induced hangovers” tend to die at the rate of 9 out of 10. You’ll learn new hangover phrases: Salvadorans wake up “made of rubber,” the French with a “wooden mouth” or a “hair ache.” The Poles, reportedly, experience a “howling of kittens,” while the Danes get “carpenters in the forehead.” There’s even discussion of the morality of finding a cure for hangovers, in which some jackass from Brown University even has the temerity to claim

“Fifteen million people in this country are alcohol-dependent. That’s a staggering number! They need help: not with hangovers but with the cause of hangovers—alcohol addiction.”